Socialist Equality Party member Mike Head was interviewed this week on 4ZZZ Brisbane community radio about the global campaign to free imprisoned Ukrainian socialist Bogdan Syrotiuk.
Blair Martin conducted the interview for 4ZZZ, which has an audience throughout Brisbane, Australia’s third-largest city, and beyond online.
Initially broadcast on Wednesday night, the interview will also be featured on the new Zed Digital program “Radical Ozzz,” which debuts on 4ZZZ this Saturday, June 15 at 5 p.m. (AEST). As well, it will stream live and on demand at the 4ZZZ website, or via the Community Radio Plus app. World Socialist Web Site readers can listen to the recording below.
Head explained that Syrotiuk is the victim of a blatant frame-up by the Ukrainian regime, which charged him with high treason and slandered him as a “propaganda” agent of the Russian government. In reality, Syrotiuk, as a leader of the Young Guard of Bolshevik-Leninists (YGBL), has published articles and statements on the World Socialist Web Site to fight to unite workers in Ukraine and Russia against the fratricidal US-NATO-instigated war and all the governments involved, including the Putin regime.
The Zelensky regime’s June 3 martial-law ban on the WSWS had further shown that Syrotiuk’s arrest was targeted at socialist opposition to the war, Head said. It also demonstrated the fascistic and dictatorial nature of the regime, exposing the claims of the US and its imperialist allies to be fighting for democracy in Ukraine.
Head warned of the intensifying danger of nuclear war posed by escalating US and NATO moves against Russia in the Ukraine war, and emphasised the connection between that conflict and the global war drive of American imperialism and its allies, including their support for the Gaza genocide and preparations for a catastrophic conflict with China.
Head called on listeners to join the struggle for Syrotiuk’s freedom, as part of a fight to defend democratic rights and mobilise the working class against the threat of a new world war. He urged all defenders of human rights and civil liberties, as well as workers and youth, to take a stand in defence of the basic right to dissent and oppose war.